rearrange the stars
by youaretoosmart
Summary: In one life, Lydia doesn't get up and shed a pan of the heavy velvet of grief draped over her shoulders. In another life, she does. (In yet a third, Allison Argent would turn a second earlier, an inch to the right, and avoid the blade. But there's no escaping the cut of that string, the snip of fate's impassive scissors.) Canon divergence post s3b and s4.


In one life, Lydia doesn't get up and shed a pan of the heavy velvet of grief draped over her shoulders.

In another life, she does.

(In yet a third, Allison Argent would turn a second earlier, an inch to the right, and avoid the blade. But the universe works in pairs, in tragic duos, and there's no escaping the cut of that string, the snip of fate's impassive scissors.)

In this other life, she picks up her phone, and doesn't wait for Scott McCall to rap at her door hesitantly a few days before winter break.

(In this life, she stays in Beacon Hills in the first place, and doesn't let her mother drag a well-meaning but misplaced sense of denial over what the ghost of Allison Argent means to her).

In this life, she joins Scott and a sick-looking Stiles in the woods in the middle of winter, and they stand at the Lookout Point under the darkening sky, small silhouettes overlooking a small town and great tragedies. The leaves crunch wetly under their shoes; there is no snow in Beacon Hills, only pouring water that flattens flowers to the ground and doesn't wash anything away.

They don't say anything the first time (and the second, but on the third Stiles begins a conversation that Scott carries on two days later). Scott has nothing but a jacket, and his grief and his love; he wears it all on his face. Lydia Martin has never been prouder of anyone in her life than when she's studying her friend's profile on those dreary afternoons.

She presses into him when the wind from the forest threatens to rip out her white scarf, and he links an arm into hers without having to ask. On her left, she can almost feel Stiles, yearning and buzzing for human contact, but also shirking away from it in the same mouvement.

In this life, Lydia Martin assesses and acknowledges and decides, _enough_. In this life, she forcefully takes Stiles' right arm, links it with her left, and shoves her hand back in her pocket.

She meets his stare dead on. She doesn't read anything in it, but she knows the downward turn of his mouth and the wrinkles on his forehead. She knocks her elbow in his side and jiggles his whole body in the same mouvement, a challenge. He stays.

Scott hums then, a small but asserted sound that has Lydia and Stiles turning to him.

"It's nearly dinner time," he says, looking down at the human chain they are. "Wanna head down for pizza?"

"I'm in," Lydia says, and Stiles doesn't say anything but he makes an interested noise, so they break apart and turn back to the car. Lydia climbs in the passenger seat because they're picking up Kira on the way, and she knows the intimate power of the backseat.

In this life at least, three weeks after Allison Argent's death, Stiles and Lydia are able to look at each other with a spark of their former complicity and smile when Scott leaves the car to pick Kira from her veranda, where's she been waiting for them reading. Kira calls a goodbye over her shoulder and Scott waves through the door, but Kira doesn't put down the book as they make their way down the driveway. It's when they step closer to the car that Lydia recognizes the cover. It's one of those Lydia lent her three days prior; Kira is nearly halfway through.

In this life, she smiles.

* * *

In this life, Stiles comes to her one day as they're walking down the street, giving Kira the most mundane tour of Beacon Hills' downtown she's had until then. They stop at a respectable distance and pretend to read a poster advertizing for a Harry Potter-themed day in Beacon Hills' only coffee shop, leaving Kira and Scott far in front of them.

They don't talk so they don't distract Scott as he gestures to the front of the closed tattoo parlor, but Lydia guesses he must be talking about the next tattoo he plans on getting, showing his flank where he wants it. There's a second of silence during which Scott rubs at his biceps, but then Kira points at one of the designs displayed on the window and his eyes smile again.

"She's good for him," Stiles says suddenly, like he does nowadays.

Lydia hums and tries to memorize the drawing of the Snitch at the bottom of the poster, because she knows Stiles doesn't want her to look at him right now. Weeks have passed and this, at least, hasn't changed. It's not the first time they're alone together, but she can tell how coiled his body is, how ready to bolt he is. She can hear him calling her and the loud thump of his body hitting the ground and the dirty wall behind her; she can feel the heat from his body in the snow, even when they're standing two feet apart and there isn't, as usual, any snow in Beacon Hills.

Stiles wants her to stop looking at him, because he wants to be able to look at himself first; Lydia wishes he let her hold the mirror. She thinks about the purple and pink streamers and the glimmer of her dress, the memory a an exhilaration she hadn't felt in years. It's a freeing sensation, one she hasn't stopped feeling ever since whenever she makes the unconscious decision to raise her hand and be the best; the feeling of being herself and seen in that way.

Stiles Stilinski stood up and reminded her that Lydia Martin was worth more than the cloth on the mirror; Lydia wishes she could return the favour, now.

It's not the same, of course, and that's why she's standing in the street as cold pierces through the sole of her boots.

"Come on," she says as she sees Scott and Kira make their way to the comic books store down the road. "I'm freezing. Let's meet them at the coffee shop."

A small smile tugs at his mouth.

"Lydia Martin, I didn't take you for one of those people incapable of resisting the capitalist appeal of an ad."

"They're making their holidays special."

"Why are we still there?"

They have to run on the last few feet and rush under the awning when the rain starts falling, and they step inside to a deep smell of coffee beans and soft music.

"Should we text Scott and Kira where we are?"

"Don't you dare," Lydia says as brushes the rain from her hair.

There's a line already formed at the counter, and usually that would mean that Lydia needs to stand on her tiptoes to see the list of hot beverages displayed behind the barista, but this is Beacon Hills. It's impossible for a teenager growing up in Beacon Hills not to be intimately familiar with the coffee choices of their town's only coffee shop.

There's something desperately bleak about the smallness of their world, despite its violence, and for a moment Lydia can only see the baubles and the garlands around the shop and think _tacky_ ; but then Stiles checks his phone and she's prompted to say:

"Leave Scott and Kira alone or I swear to God, Stiles-"

He pockets his phone and doesn't look at her.

"That was Malia."

The sentence sounds weird in his mouth but not foreign. It's moment before Lydia can reign in the instinctive feeling that settles heavily in her stomach and makes her want to huff mockingly.

She doesn't like to hear that name, but she's heard too many times in the past few weeks not to notice how carelessly Stiles says it. She thinks, rather purposefully, that he's never been so flippant with her names.

In this life, and in the first, perhaps, she can admit that she likes the way Stiles Stilinski says her name; purposefully and forcefully, like he's giving it a whole new meaning. And the whole world, she thinks, can hear it in his tone, loud and clear and honest. But Lydia Martin can hear what no one else can, and if she listens close she can pick up other things, too; words like _don't start doubting yourself now_ , and _that was really smart_.

In this life, and in the other, than never changes.

"How's Malia?" she asks as they get their order and sit at a small round table near the window; not the one with the cute bench seat where Lydia used to sit for hours with Allison and laugh over hazelnut coffee refills.

It's not enough to block out the grief, she realizes as she takes a sip and the sweetness tastes like tar down her oesophagus. Stiles frowns and looks at her, eyes flitting over her face before settling on her face.

"Scott is trying to teach her to turn. It's going well, mostly, except for when she nearly takes out my eyes."

 _That'd be a shame_.

"That's nice that she has friends." Then, with the same brand of selfish possessiveness that drove her to Allison in the first place, "Have you given her Kira's phone number? And mine? I think we could hang out, just the three of us."

"Kira'd be good for her," Stiles agrees, and she can feel the relief in his voice.

She doesn't know how to tell him that she's doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, and she doesn't know how to address the disappointed expectation in her that Stiles would see through it either.

"She'd be good for Kira," she says instead, and turns her head away when she catches Stiles' eyes, the warmth in there that she hasn't felt in a while.

She doesn't say, _in a way I can't be_ , but she knows he hears it anyway.

"And you?" she says after a while. "What do you think of her?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because you're usually a decently good judge of character when you have prolonged exposure to someone."

Stiles doesn't say anything for a long time, and when he does, she's surprised to see him still staring at her. It spells a special brand of honesty she's missed in the past few weeks.

"I'm not sure," he says in a low voice. "In Eichen House… I don't know if it was me or the Nogitsune."

"Is it a problem? If it was you," she adds when he doesn't answer.

"Not in the grand scheme of things, I guess." He shrugs, and there's a new form of self-deprecation she doesn't like to the jerky movement. "And I can't speak for her. For me? It does."

She both wants to know in which territory they're venturing and too scared to ask for details. She thinks of the length of Malia's legs under her shorts and how Stiles complains that she comes through the windows.

"Maybe you should ask her."

"Yeah, I can see _that_ conversation going well. 'Hey Malia, did we, or did we not, make-out on that couch in a mental institution's basement, while I possibly was high on meds or possessed by a Japanese demon?"

He ends abruptly and she forces him to meet her stare. It feels like it's something they need to talk about. It's an unusual thought for two friends, but not when they share the kind of history that makes Lydia stare at the faded glowing stars on her ceiling for too-long stretches of time.

"See? Easy."

He spares her a smile. It's more than the joke deserves, but it's the minimum Lydia will ask for. She's scared of what that conversation is leading to, and she sees the same thing in Stiles, in the way he rubs his hands through his hair when the bell above the door announces a new client. She looks at him, takes in his dark jacket and the collection of layers underneath, the bag under his eyes and the way his cheeks are filling in again, and she thinks that it's scary and confusing.

 _I think I'm in love with you and that scares the hell out of me_ , Lydia realizes when he nervously twirls his empty cup around his index. She reaches out for the cup at the same time its momentum carries it out of Stiles' reach and onto the table.

They allow each other a small and instinctive laugh and Stiles throws a napkin to soak up the small spill on the table. It's a good feeling.

It's a good feeling when their hands nearly touch, and when they don't draw back immediately, when Stiles takes her cup to throw away and draws out his tongue to catch the last drop of coffee. He smiles with her again when he comes back, and they wait for Scott and Kira to emerge from the drizzle in silence.

In this life, she thinks he knows.

* * *

 **Find me at youaretoosmart on tumblr.**


End file.
